13C NMR spectroscopy, ab initio quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics were been used to investigate the trans-4-trifluoromethyl-2,2,6-trimethyl-1,3-dioxane chair/twist-boat equilibrium. The molecular mechanics calculations were based upon the MM3 and AMBER force fields. A 6-31G* basis set was used for the ab initio calculations and MP2 correlation corrections were applied. Both the ab initio and AMBER molecular mechanics calculations are consistent with the 13C NMR chemical shift differences for the trans-4-trifluoromethyl-2,2,6-trimethyl-1,3-dioxane conformers. The predicted chair to twist-boat equilibrium suggested by the MM3 calculations is not consistent with the experimental data. These results support the suggestion by Howard et al. (1) on the critical role of electrostatic interactions in determining the chair/twist-boat equilibrium.